A Royal Secret: The intriguing true story of King Gustaf V, Sweden's first gay king

This Christmas, Sweden’s public service television channel SVT will premiere the mini series A Royal Secret, an anticipated period drama based on a true story - directed by British-Swedish director Lisa James Larsson. En Kunglig Affär, as it is called in Swedish, tells the story of the secret relationship between Stockholm restauranteur Kurt Haijby and King Gustaf V in the 1930s, at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence in Sweden. We spoke to Lisa James Larsson and the scriptwriter Bengt Braskered, who revealed the creative process behind not only bringing one of Sweden’s biggest scandals to the screen, but also showing the human story behind the headlines.

Based on true events, the story of Kurt Haijby follows the relationship between the titular con-man and the then King of Sweden. They meet when Haijby is granted an audience with the widower monarch, to discuss the liquor license he needs to help his ailing restaurant. As their dynamic evolves beyond the platonic, the king’s advisors interfere to stop the relationship, and the four-part series sees Haijby deported to Nazi Germany, thrown into an asylum, lose his family and business and be tried for blackmail in one of the worst miscarriages of justice that Sweden has ever seen.

For A Royal Secret writer Bengt Braskered, the story has been a point of interest since 1997, when he first looked past its sanitised headlines. After many years of research into what was always presented as a legal case about extortion, he found the angle that led him to write the script. As Braskered explains, “Being gay at the time was illegal, a perversion. So nobody could fathom that this particular story might be one about love. But then, I thought to myself - what if that’s precisely what it was about? Maybe the king was very much in love with Kurt? And though there's no denying that Kurt probably thought he could benefit from the situation, perhaps he was in love too?”

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To grasp the depth of Braskered’s words, one must understand the stark reality of Sweden’s recent history regarding LGBTQ+ rights. Homosexual relations were a crime in Sweden until 1944, when homosexuality was decriminialised, though merely upgraded from being a criminal offence to being classified as a mental illness. It was as recently as 1979 that Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare declared homosexuality to no longer be a mental disorder. This glimpse at how homosexuality was regarded, not only by society but also by the state, is vital to understanding why the tale of Kurt Haijby and King Gustaf V was reduced to nothing more than one of blackmail and corruption. As it was inconceivable that two men could be in love - let alone when one half of the couple was the King of Sweden - what remained, once that human element was removed, was a simplistic story of attempted exploitation.

“As soon as I could look at the story and think ‘they are in love’, Braskered explains, “everything became logical. It suddenly made sense that the king didn’t get rid of the slightly criminal Haijby who everyone else was against. Why? Because he loved him.” And therein lies the beauty of this series, as it reveals the real, complex human side of history. Not only of a monarch trapped behind gilded bars from which he cannot break free to be himself, nor the way the palace was determined to put a stop to the affair. The series also shows the immense damage done when people are denied the possibility of living their authentic lives, because of limitations imposed on them by societal prejudices that extend to the law.

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The series’ director, Lisa James Larsson, was immediately drawn to the story and, after reading Braskered’s script, fully embraced the task of bringing the tale to the screen. She says of the experience of working with Braskered’s words, “he’s unbelievably good - he writes for how I want to tell - and that sort of magic just doesn’t happen often.”

The pandemic delayed the intended start date for filming, though this meant the cast and crew were extra ready when that opportunity came in the summer of 2020. As James Larsson says, “By then, I was so prepared - I’d had my script in its final form for a year, so I felt like I could just trust my instincts, my craft, my casting and the script. I’ve never been more ready to tell a story in my life. I cared so much about this story - every single aspect of it - it all felt so near and so close to my heart.”

The lead actors rounding out a strong cast are the much-awarded Sverrir Gudnason, who plays Haijby, and the renowned playwright and actor Staffan Göthe, who fully personifies King Gustaf V. Both well-known for their respective careers, they are unrecognisable as their characters, a testament to both their craft and the faultless work of the hair, makeup and wardrobe departments. And while the storyline may centre around these two male protagonists, a third character that cannot be ignored is the appropriately regal presence on film of natural Swedish light. Curated by James Larsson’s direction and framed almost into a background character by Director of Photography Frida Wendel, the variations of light that underline each scene play a supporting role in presenting, to stunning effect, the nuanced emotions of the characters. Likewise, upon seeing the first cuts from her editor - whose handiwork was so in tune with her vision that she describes his interpretation of her ideas as “he edited like I breathed”- James Larsson says she was left speechless. And with a hauntingly evocative score by composer Jimmy Lagnefors imbuing each scene with a poignant atmosphere, one can’t help but be enthralled by the totality of the cinematic result.

Of this collective effort, James Larsson says, “It was an absolutely magical collaboration, everyone just wanted to bring everything they had to be part of it, everybody’s eyes were filled with total passion. If you get to start with a script as good as this one, it’s impossible to do it half-heartedly. So many people said they’d never felt this way about a project before, and I’ve never met a more dedicated group of people than on this set. And I do know how blessed we were, as a feeling like this does not happen more than once or twice in your career.” And, as one can see in the final output, this togetherness translates on film: “Everything was right”, she continues. “It was just meant to be. I wouldn't change a single thing - a feeling I have not had since my first film Ego, exactly 10 years ago. And the last six minutes of the series are the most beautiful thing I've seen - not just that I’ve directed, but that I’ve ever seen. When does that ever happen?!”

The story, James Larsson says, is one that has been waiting to be told, and which feels incredibly relevant still today. Not only does the series highlight how homosexuality could not even be named at the time, but it also touches on class and status divides, staring down the many prejudices and injustices of what past generations have staunchly held to be true. And even if there has been much progress since the era in which the series is set, there's still an immense difference in attitudes towards members of the LGBTQ+ community today depending on where they are born, and much progress remains to be made. Which is why it is vital to keep expanding the representation of LGBTQ+ stories across all media, so that these may portray as wide a range of individual stories as possible.

One show that has been lauded for its recent contribution to the screen is the 2021 Netflix series Young Royals, an immensely popular series about a teenage prince discovering young love with a male student at his boarding school. James Larsson recognises how positive it is to see the show resonating with audiences around the world, and sees the parallels with her own series: two Swedish male monarchs, in different times, struggling with how the perception of their sexuality is hindering them from living their own life outright. While Young Royals is fictional, its storyline is even more emboldened when one knows that Sweden recently did actually have a gay King. Braskered is positive about the impact that a series like Young Royals can have, especially thanks to its reach via Netflix, meaning it is available in so many countries, including ones where human rights laws are severely lacking: “If one young person in a country where homosexuality is forbidden can see something like that and think I am not alone, then it helps.”

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And Braskered would know - his own personal experience as a man navigating the world’s reaction to his sexuality has seen him go from being born “sick”, as he says, in 1967, to seeing legislative change aged 12 in 1979, to witnessing the euphoria of sexual freedom in the 1970s, followed by the devastation of the HIV-AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Braskered has seen much change in his own brief lifetime and he felt it was extra important to show the experiences of the King as a man in the later chapters of life who is still unable to fully live his life as the person he really is. The king is 75 when he meets Haijby, and Braskered wanted to make sure that this age-differing love could be portrayed in full: that longing looks the same at any age and that new love can make a 75-year old man feel the same as a giggling teenager. This representation included showing the naked form of the older sovereign for what he represents - a person who has the full capacity to love and be loved, to indulge his physical passions, to experience lust and erotic sensibilitites as well as the full breadth of emotion that he carries within him - and not merely be relegated to holding hands or getting a peck on the cheek from his partner, in the way that older couples are more commonly portrayed on film.

According to the latest data from The European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, which looks at legislation to rank countries in an annual review, Sweden was placed 7th of 49 countries. While this is a positive ranking for Sweden and Braskered acknowledges the progress made in the rights of the LGBTQ+ community within his lifetime, so much more needs to be done. He warns of never becoming complacent and references the liberal, utopian thinking of Berlin in the 1920s, to which fascism abruptly put an end. By being aware of history and its potential to repeat itself, we can see how quickly progress can be reversed - and how important it is to safeguard the advancements that have been made so far.

We live in a world where some expressions of love are forbidden, where who one is and chooses to love can be deemed a reason for punishment, or worse, a state-supported excuse for hatred, violence and death. And as long as that is the reality in some places on earth, then more stories of love in all its expressions must be shared.

A Royal Secret is not only a masterful piece of filmmaking, but an important prompt to not take our liberties for granted and to never rest on any perceived laurels of progress. It is an exquisite reminder that we can never stop fighting for more humanity and more empathy - the only worthy goals to which our collective energy and legislation should be aimed when it comes to love.